Amazon making India centre of fintech push with new offerings
The American juggernaut Amazon.com, Inc AMZN.O is gradually increasing its financial presence in India. The financial portfolio of the firm is all set to include insurance and even gold in the Indian market.
It is predicted by a study, done by PwC along with Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India lobby group, that the country’s digital payment market will be worth $135billion within the year 2023. India’s growing fintech ecosystem is a lucrative field of opportunities and Amazon is making most of it by keeping the country at the core of its fintech push.
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Amazon first entered India’s fintech market with their e-wallet offering Amazon Pay, back in 2016. Their portfolio has since expanded to include a variety of products, from introducing credit card to processing payments for commercial transactions like food deliveries and bill payments. As a push to widen its fintech presence, Amazon started offering auto insurance since July, and gold investment products since August, this year.
The Challenges and the Opportunities of the Indian Market
India is a country that is still predominantly cash-based with approximately 190 million people still without a bank account. Amazon’s aggressive stance to push into this economy successively ramps up the competition for its rivals who are struggling for profitability in the same scenario.
The technology giant aims to expand its customers base through diverse offerings. Jostling to create a space in India’s increasingly crowded battleground digital payments market, Amazon hopes that the new inclusions will help to attract more subscribers to its Prime loyalty programme.
With over 100 million registered users, Amazon is well suited to use its other fintech services to win more subscribers for its $13 Prime plan that not only offers music and video streaming but also faster shipping.
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According to the head of India Amazon Pay Mahendra Nerukar, the firm also aims to make Amazon Pay the most chosen method of payment with the country. In a bid towards achieving this, Amazon Pay has signed up four million merchants.
While talking to Reuters he mentioned, “Apparently Chinese fashion designers are leaving the back pockets off jeans because no one uses them anymore (for wallets). We would love to make that happen in India.”
However, Amazon is not the only one eyeing the highly profitable Indian market. Other big names with their deep-pocketed international backers such as Google Pay backed by Alphabet, PhonePe backed by Walmart, and Paytm backed by Alibaba and Softbank are all vying for market share within the country too.
Indeed, India’s fintech market is growing at a steady pace and is laden with potential. Hence it would be interesting to see how and what unfolds as these global fintech giants get ready to play the field.
Source: Asia Blockchain
